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2006 Altima Front Wheel Bearing Replacement Procedure.

53K views 16 replies 9 participants last post by  Perloso 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello Nissan folks,


I am going to post a thread about how to replace 06 Altima 2.5S front wheel bearing on the driver side.


I am a novice but with lots of internet research and effort, I finally made it without a mistake.


*Due to the picture upload restriction, 5 images per thread. I am sorry that I was only able to upload five images here. In addition, when I was on the FAQ page of 2002-2006 Altima to post this thread, I found that I was not allowed to post any new thread on the FAQ section. I think this is because of some kind of restriction on a new member.


By doing this job, you can also replace brake pads, disk rotor, outer and inner tie rods, wheel hub, wheel bearing, steering knuckle, transverse link(low control arm) including low ball joint, shock absorber(strut) and even drive shaft(cv axle) as well.



***Warning !!!


***Please be advised that I can not be responsible for any damage done to you or your vehicle during your work. Work at your own risk!



***First of all, as we all know, your safety is your top priority. Always doublecheck your jack and jack stand to prevent your vehicle from falling.


1. As you all know, jack the vehicle and brace the vehicle with a jack stand to support it more safely.


2. Loosen five 21 mm wheel nuts and remove the tire.


3. Put the tire underneath the vehicle to brace the vehicle.


4. Now loosen two 14 mm bolts holding the caliper and remove the brake pads and caliper from the torque member where the caliper sits on.


**Note : I want to suppose that you know all the procedure above. sorry for no pictures for the procedure. Removing the caliper and brake pads is not a difficut job. But be very careful with the brake line.


5. Hang the caliper on the suspension spring with bungee cords and make sure the brake line is not twisted. Otherwise, it may cause a costly repair. I can not stress enough on this step since the brake line leakage is such a critical issue. Double or triple check is requied!!





6. Now locate two 19 mm torque member bots and remove them. Then, you can remove the torque member and the rotor. When I did the job, the rotor did not come off right away so I used the rubber mallet to take it out. Hit around the center not the rotor disc surface.


7. Remove the cotter pin which is fitted into the hole on the end of the drive shaft and use an air impact wrench to loosen the 32 mm axle nut and take it out of the drive shaft.


8. Locate the cotter pin and the 19 mm tie rod nut and remove both. When you are done, you may need to strike the matal part of the knuckle assembly with a hammer in order to separate the rod from the knuckle unless you already have a special tie rod removal tool. Remember why I am doing this is to save money not to possess all the tools that are not commonly used. Therefore, hammering should be fair for this case. -_-
Do not hit the bolt thread or the rubber part of the tie rod. Only hit the matal part of the knuckle where the tie rod bolt fits into.





**Note : After you remove the tie rod, do not turn the steering wheel to either direction or the vehicle steering could be out of center. Also as you can see, my driver side outer tie rod boot was torn. I did not have time to replace the rod at the moment so if you see that yours is torn, you should buy the rod and replace the bearing and the rod at once since they both require wheel alignment service.


9. Remove the 19 mm strut nut while holding the 17 mm bolt with a wrench. Do it over for the second nut.





10. Now tap on the end of the drive shaft with a flat screw driver and a hammer in order to take it out of the wheel hub assembly that is the part of the knuckle assembly.


**Note : Support the drive shaft with a jack or a jack stand so that it does not sag too much since it has a certain weight. In addition, do not damage the boot or the thread of the drive shaft. Otherwise, you will need to buy new one.


11. Locate the cotter pin and the 22 mm low ball joint nut and remove both. To remove the whole knuckle assembly from the transverse link(I think it's also called low control arm), you need to hammer the metal part of the knuckle where the ball joint bolt thread is inserted into. Do not damage the ball joint bolt thread or its rubber boot. As aforementioned above, there is also a special tool to separate the knuckle from the transverse link(low control arm). However, I want to do it inexpensive way so I did hammering. -_-
In my case, it did not come out right away like the tie rod, either. Therefore, I had to hammer the metal part for a while to separate it from the transverse link.





12. Now you are ready to take this whole knuckle to the machine shop having a press. Buy a bearing from any auto part shop in advance. In my case, the job only took a mechanic 20 to 30 minutes to get it done. The charge should vary by machine shops.


**Note : Don't forget to ask a mechanic to put two snap rings back into both sides of the knuckle after the bearing replacement.





13. The installation is the reverse order of the removal.


14. After you have done all the job completely, you should get a wheel alignment service.





Hey guys, You can also check its video version on Youtube by clicking the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sASQ3vzB30U








Tightening Torque,

Tire wheel five 21mm nuts: 80 ft-lb
Caliper two 14mm Bolts: 20 ft-lb
Torque member two 19mm nuts: 110 ft-lb
Tie rod 19mm castle nut: 25 ft-lb
Drive axle 32mm nut: 200 ft-lb
Strut (shock absorber) two 19mm nuts: 103 ft-lb
Low ball joint 22mm nut: 58 ft-lb



Thank you for reading and good luck!!
 
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#2 ·
As for your clunk, I would take a torque wrench to all the nuts and bolts pertaining to the strut and sawybar link (4 of them, 2 on the knuckle, 1 under the hood, and two on the link). I had a clunk on my right front and turned out the dealership forgot to tighten the swaybar link when changing the strut under warranty.
 
#4 ·
Need some advice

About 6 months ago I had a wheel bearing going bad on the drivers side front. So I pulled the knuckle off and brought it to a local parts store and had them press a new bearing in for me. I took it home and everything was great. For about 1 day then it went out again.

I took the knuckle off again and brought it back in thinking the kid at the parts store just didn't know what he was doing. So I put it in the second time and made sure I torqued everything just right incase that is what was causing issues last time. This bearing lasted about a month.

I brought it back to the parts store, this time with a new hub, thinking I may have had a warped hub causing the bearing to go out. I was not working with a more experienced person who seemed a little more credible. I put it all back together and this one lasted 6 months.

Yesterday I went back and told them to just give me the bearing and I will bring it to a real mechanic this time to have it pressed in. I just got done putting in the 4th bearing, all covered under warranty and it is quieter, but still isnt perfect.

I tried some different tires on the wheel to see if I was just crazy and it was a tire. No dice, I know it is still a bad bearing. Everytime I put a new one in it works for a while. I think I am going to finally break down and just bring in the whole car so the mechanic can hear it.

Am I crazy? 3 different people have pressed the bearings in for me and all 4 times they have been bad? is that even possible? The reason I dont think it is anything else is because the new bearing makes it go quiet, for a while... What else is there?
 
#16 ·
About 6 months ago I had a wheel bearing going bad on the drivers side front. So I pulled the knuckle off and brought it to a local parts store and had them press a new bearing in for me. I took it home and everything was great. For about 1 day then it went out again.

I took the knuckle off again and brought it back in thinking the kid at the parts store just didn't know what he was doing. So I put it in the second time and made sure I torqued everything just right incase that is what was causing issues last time. This bearing lasted about a month.

I brought it back to the parts store, this time with a new hub, thinking I may have had a warped hub causing the bearing to go out. I was not working with a more experienced person who seemed a little more credible. I put it all back together and this one lasted 6 months.

Yesterday I went back and told them to just give me the bearing and I will bring it to a real mechanic this time to have it pressed in. I just got done putting in the 4th bearing, all covered under warranty and it is quieter, but still isnt perfect.

I tried some different tires on the wheel to see if I was just crazy and it was a tire. No dice, I know it is still a bad bearing. Everytime I put a new one in it works for a while. I think I am going to finally break down and just bring in the whole car so the mechanic can hear it.

Am I crazy? 3 different people have pressed the bearings in for me and all 4 times they have been bad? is that even possible? The reason I dont think it is anything else is because the new bearing makes it go quiet, for a while... What else is there?
are you getting your bearings from autozone? i know this is a old thread. but if you are getting the autozone brand. try going with a better brand like timkin. $20 more. but better quality
 
#5 ·
Dear Rcplanesarefun
Since I replaced all four bearings for my 2006 Altima, the noise from all of the wheels seemed to be gone. After a while, I noticed that some kind of similar noise came from the front wheels again so I rotated all four tires from front to back. Yet the noise still existed even if I put almost brand new two tires at the front. With this, it may imply that some models of Nissan Altima around the year of 2005 or 2006 could possibly have some defects somewhere around steering knuckles. By the way, it is believed that the noise from an unevenly worn tire is very similar to that from a bad wheel bearing.
 
#7 ·
Hello Rcplanesarefun,

Something just came to my mind and what it is, is that as you can see in my original post about the replacement of the front wheel bearing at the top of this page, my tie rod rubber boot was torn and the grease leaked out.

Since I heard that the metal stud on the tie rod would eventually get rusted and become loose which may cause tire vibration, I often held and shook each of the front tires back and forth with holding my hands on the position of 9:15 (i.e. one hand on the left side and the other on the right side from the center of wheel). I did hear some sound between rattle and clunk (closer to rattle).

I doubt if this could cause the front tires to make shimmy.

Hope this might help.
 
#9 ·
Develoments. I just went outside and shook the tire 12 oclock 6 oclock and it was absolutley silent. I then shook it 9 oclock and 3 oclock and heard a pop pop pop every time I shook the tire. It souded like it was coming from further under the car and I am still waking up so I didn't crawl under there to check it out, I will look more and report back.
 
#10 ·
I figured it out. I took off all the tires and inspected them by and found some ineven wear on the very inside of the pasengers side front. I put my little doughnut up there , wend t for a dive and it was much better. Not 100% better but enough better that I am going to get new tires before I do any more diagnosing. I hope this helps someone else solve their issue. I feel dumb for ignoring such and easy answer.

When looking for the cause of the pop in mentioned in the previous post I noticed my passenger side axle seal is leaking, A LOT. It is totally unrelated but needs to get fixed cause it is causing a mess, that's another thread. Thanks to all that responded.
 
#13 ·
I just had the outer tie rod off doing the wheel bearing and it seemed fine. Also I can shake the wheel and hold my hand on the outer and it does not seem to be making the pop. It is coming from farther in. (inner tie rod)

More investigation is required. Last time I was under there the exhaust was hot so I couldn't do too much digging. Will look at the inner later this week. I do not want to jam up this wheel bearing thread with steering issues so I will report back when I figure it out. There is a nice video on youtube showing how to change an inner tie rod for anyone looking.
 
#14 ·
Slipping the bearing off the hub spindle is where you get your brownie points. A decent size table vise and correct socket and you can do it yourself. Bitch when the inner race stays on when removing the bearing. Ive got to the point of just buying a new hub and bearing assemble together sometimes.
 
#15 ·
good thing i found this im about to do it on mine
 
#17 ·
Hi,

I didn't wanted to start a new thread, so I searched on the forum and I found this thread.

I have an 2005 Altima 3.5 SE automatic, and I'm about to change also both front wheel bearings and hubs. My question is, it is good buying the bearing and hub assembly as replacement on pep boys or advanced auto parts? I check on my local Nissan dealers and I found that OEM ones are a rip off ($280+ without tax)

This is what I found online,

http://www.pepboys.com/product/details/78326/00749

Moog Hub Assemblies Hub Repair Kit 518516: Advance Auto Parts

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks
 
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